The Gospel Coalition is running a series of articles this week on classical, evidential, and covenantal (presuppositional) apologetics from a variety of contributors. My interest is of course with covenantal apologetics so in this post are listed all the articles regarding that issue published this week at The Gospel Coalition (including responses that those articles generate which I found particularly informative and helpful.)
Last Modified: 14 March 2012.
- William Edgar, “Fides quaerens intellectum: What is presuppositionalism?” The Gospel Coalition (2012, March 11).
- Paul Copan, “Questioning presuppositionalism,” The Gospel Coalition (2012, March 12).
- James Anderson, “Does presuppositionalism engage in question-begging?” Analogical Thoughts (2012, March 13).
- James White, “Apologetics methodology: Paul Copan’s questioning of presuppositionalism,” The Dividing Line (2012, March 13). [Video.]
- Steve Hays, “Copan on presuppositionalism,” Triablogue (2012, March 13).
- Joshua Whipps, “Questioning Copan,” Choosing Hats (2012, March 13).
- K. Scott Oliphint, “Answering objections to presuppositionalism,” The Gospel Coalition (2012, March 13).
Over at his blog, Dr. James Anderson recently announced a 50% discount being offered for a very limited time by P&R Publishing on the festschrift in honour of John Frame, Speaking the Truth in Love: The Theology of John M. Frame (2009), with expository and analytical essays from 36 contributors on Frame’s own work in the fields of theology, apologetics, ethics, etc. (including Wayne Grudem, Paul Helm, Vern Poythress, James Anderson and more). The discount expires 31 March 2010, so get your copy soon. See the Table of Contents and a sample chapter (PDF).
(HT: Chris Bolt at Choosing Hats.)
Over at UrbanPhilosophy.net is a Philosophy of Religion student from the University of Toronto, Mitchell LeBlanc, who has been endeavouring to make a case against presuppositional apologetics. Coursing a new direction from his original first three drafts, [1] perhaps due to the daunting scope of such a task or perhaps due to the criticisms from Chris Bolt and others at ChoosingHats.com, [2] the final draft version of the article [3] targets the Transcendental Argument for God (TAG) as argued for by the late philosopher Greg L. Bahnsen from Covenant Media Foundation.
As did his mentor Cornelius Van Til, Bahnsen defended the transcendental argument as singularly the only cogent and self-consistent Christian apologetic method by virtue of being uniquely grounded upon the distinctive presuppositions of revelational epistemology. [4] Van Til’s extensive work is considered by some to be a contribution to Christian philosophy of Copernican dimensions, [5] wherein he demonstrated by indirect proof the existence of God as the necessary precondition for the intelligibility of reality and the human experience thereof, such that God, as affirmed by Christian orthodoxy, is not a conclusion drawn from rational argument (evidentialism) but is logically prior to any reasoning at all (presuppositionalism). [6] As Van Til framed the matter in his An Introduction to Systematic Theology, “Unless God exists as ultimate [and] self-subsistent, we could not even know anything; we could not even reason that God must exist, nor could we even ask a question about God.” [7]
LeBlanc at this point holds a considered view that the TAG is not merely debatable but in fact false, taking as his point of evaluation the fundamental laws of logic, concluding that they “cannot depend on the Christian God” and therefore the TAG “is not sound”—and must remain so “pending further defense” thereof. His bold conclusion notwithstanding, we may inquire with skepticism whether or not LeBlanc really has successfully defeated the TAG as it already stands, never mind its further defense.
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